17 | March | 2022 | idealisticrebel

It was a Thursday evening, and I hadn’t watched the news for a few days. Other things were going on in my life. So, I turned on CNN and what to my startled eyes did appear but a night time scene of a city with explosions in the background.

Journalists were describing what was happening. I sat in shock, and watched, as the journalists described the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine. I was in shock for several hours. I didn’t cry; I didn’t feel upset. I was just numb. It was the 21st Century, and Putin was bombing Ukraine? What about those poor Ukrainian people?

I spent hours listening to alll the journalist who were reporting, and watching what my eyes did not want to believe was happening.

When I finally went to bed, I slept off and on, shuddering at the meaning of this War. Russia had nuclear weapon, as did the United States. We had to do something to help Ukrainians, and yet we couldn’t bring Nuclear War to the world.

When we dropped atomic bombs during World War II on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they completed annihilated the cities and people who lived in them. Both Russia and the United States have many more nuclear weapons now than were used that horrific day in World War II.

There are other countries that have nuclear weapons. That just makes it even more terrifying.

Since that first night of Putin’s war, I have learned some things about the Ukrainian people. They are good, moral people. They are strong, brave and courageous. They believe in their country, and they are not going to roll over and let Putin take it from them.

Ukraine has a military, and yet civilians with no militia training are fighting, standing up to the Russians, risking their lives to keep their independence and the independence of their country.

Actually, Ukraine has continually put up much more resistance than Putin expected, and his own well trained, practiced troops are not fighting with the same zeal and courage of the untrained Ukrainians. I heard on CNN last night a reporter comment on this fact, and then make an interesting point. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that soldiers will fight for their country, their families, their beliefs, their land, their homes and their freedom. Soldiers will not fight for a megalomaniac. Soldiers will not fight for an authoritarian ruler just because they are commanded to do so; at least, not with any fervor. They will fight out of fear of their leader, though.

Edwin Starr may have said it best, singing a song by Barrett Strong & Norman Whitfield: